Thursday, December 21, 2017

I made this DIY castle out of birch plywood. I used the papier-mâché technique to give it a nice stone wall texture. I also used dry brushing to give it a more interesting paint job.

First of all I designed the template of my castle. I then printed the template out and joined all the template pieces together.

I then glued the templates on 9mm plywood, using spray adhesive. I made the circles on the template with 35 degree radius. This is perfect form my 35mm forstner bit. I first marked with an owl and then removed the material with the drill.

I then cut the rest of the pieces on the bandsaw.

The towers of my castle are mirror images of each other. So I glued two pieces of plywood with double sided tape and cut both templates together.

I then sanded the pieces lightly on my belt sander.

I glued all the pieces together with wood glue. I used my nail gun to add brad nails to keep everything in place before the glue sets.

To give the castle a more stone wall texture I used the paper mache technique. I thinneddown wood glue using water. I then cut pieces of kitchen paper. Using a bush I glued the paper on the plywood. The inner area I just coated with wood glue. When the glue dries you get a really hard paintable surface.

I panted the castle with latex paint.

I then cut the ladder and door pieces on the bandsaw. I glued them together. For these pieces I also used bamboo sticks to act as mini dowels!

To give everything a more aged surface I used the dry brushing technique. You take a brush and dip it in paint. Then you remove the excess paint of the brush with a piece of paper of cloth. Then you apply really fast light strokes on the item you want to dry brush. This highlights the high spots and gives a really interesting texture to the project.

I finished the piece with two coats of clear, satin, water based varnish!

Thursday, December 14, 2017

I made this wall lamp out of 9mm birch plywood. It is actually a backlight lamp with LEDs.

First of all I cut a piece of birch plywood to size. I used my circular saw with a guide rail for this job.

I then printed out a template. I Joined the pieces of the template together. I added masking tape on the plywood and then I glued the template on the tape with spray adhesive. This way there won’t be any left over glue on the wood, once I remove the template.

I then cut the template out on the bandsaw. I sanded the piece using my belt sander and my rotary tool with a sanding drum bit.

To support the LED strip, I cut several square plywood blocks on the bandsaw. I glued them on the back of the lamp. I used my nail gun to add one nail to each block, until the glue dried.

I also glued and nailed a couple of spacers. Those spacers prevent the lamp from touching the wall. This way the light comes out much nicer.

I secured the LED strip with my hot glue gun. To force the hot glue to freeze faster I provided air with my air gun.

I then soldered and connected the power supply and the on/off switch of the lamp. I also used heat shrinking tubing to a couple of exposed solders. I glued the wires on the back of the lamp with my hot glue gun again.

I also drilled a hole to act as the hanging mechanism.

I painted the lamp pink. After the first coat was dry I lightly sanded with 220 grit sandpaper. I applied another coat of paint and then finished the piece with two coats of clear water based varnish.

Thursday, December 7, 2017

This is a percussion musical instrument. It is similar to a baby rattle. I made it out of lime tree on the lathe.

First of all I cut a piece of lime tree to size using my circular saw.

I then used my jointer to flatten one side of the board. I cut it in half on the bandsaw. I glued the two flat sides together.

I then cut two cylindrical pieces on the bandsaw. I did that so that the hollowed egg of the maraca would be hollowed mostly on side grain. This makes the hollowing process much easier.

Using my 1/2 inch bowl gouge I turned the cylinders true. With the parting tool and the skew chisel I created the tenons that would fit the jaws of my chuck.

I shaped the outer sides of the eggs with the spindle gouge. I then hollowed the interior with the bowl gouge.

The halfs are jointed together with a mortise and tenon. After I have roughly turned the two halfs, I glued them together on the lathe. I cleaned one end of the egg with a bowl gouge.

I then used the a forstner bit on the tailstock’s chuck and drilled a hole on one end of the egg.

Using a spindle gouge, I turned the spindle for the handle. I measured the forester bit I used before with a caliper and made a tenon on the end of the spindle with the parting tool.

I filled the egg with rice and glued the egg and the handle together.

I then finished turning everything. I used a straight chisel as a scraper to smooth out as much surface as I could.

I used my steady rest and a bowl gouge to finish the top of the egg. The steady rest helps reduce vibrations and also I avoided the piece from braking off the spindle.

I then sanded everything with 100 and 220 grit.

I used water based powder dyes to color the wood. First I applied the light color with a piece of cloth. Then I added the two darker ones. With the cloth I tried to blend the colors and create a gradient effect.

I then lightly sanded with 220 and repeated the process. I then used a wet rag to better blend the colors.

I finished the piece with shellac. Shellac is alcohol based and does not dissolve the dyes. I applied six coats of shellac with light sanding between coats.

Using the skew chisel I parted the piece of the chuck. I sanded the bottom on the belt sander and finished it with shellac.

My maraca was now ready, it was a really cool and interesting project!

Thursday, November 30, 2017

This is a useful sanding station based on my portable belt sander. I also made jigs for chisel and gouge sharpening plus a special jig for making circles. I made this station out of birch plywood, melamine, spruce, dowels and basically whatever scrap pieces of wood I had laying around.

My Skil belt sander has those screw holes that happen to be 8mm size. So I used those and 8mm dowels to easily mount the sander on a melamine piece.

To transfer the exact location of the holes on the melamine, I used masking tape to trace a template and then transferred it on a piece of melamine I cut on the table saw. I then drilled holes on the melamine and glued the dowels in place.

I then used my circular saw and a guide rail to cut a piece of birch plywood. I secured the melamine on the plywood using just screws.

I then cut a couple of spruce pieces on the table saw. I glued them on the plywood. I used a few brad nails to secure them in place while glue up.

I then traced the belt sander’s sole and cut it out of a piece of spruce on the bandsaw. Now I used the sander for the first time to sand the piece.

I then glued and nailed the sanding base on the structure.

At this point you can clamp the jig on the bench and use it as a regular desktop sander.

Using a scrap piece of spruce, I made a flat chisel sharpening jig. I glued a flat piece on the jig which pivots on a dowel.

Then I made something similar for sharpening gouges. Only this time the gouge sit on a 90 degree angle so it can be rotated while sharpening!

Then I made a circle making jig. This is a flat plywood piece that is like an extruded dovetail pin. I made it on the table saw. That piece has a dowel that acts as the circle’s center. The piece slides through another piece with opposite 45 degree beveled sides. The whole piece is actually a sliding dovetail that sits on the sanding station with two dowels. A small screw secures the inner piece in place when you decide the radius of the circle you wanna make.

My jig was now ready and I hope you enjoy it! I think it will prove really useful in my shop!

The lamp is actually a box with a Christmas scenery in it. I first cut the sides of the box to size on my table saw. For the cross cuts I used my sled!

I jointed the sides with lap joints. I cut the dado with a series of passes on the table saw, using a stop block on my cross cut sled. This joint provides plenty of glueing surface.

I then glued the sides together. To avoid using clamps I added a few brad nails.

In the front of the box I added a trim piece. This hides the joints and the LED strip. I cut the 45 degree miters on my miter box and glued and brad nailed them in place. I filed any gaps in the miters with glue and sanding dust.

To make the background of the scene I had to reduce the thickness of my material. I did that by passing it through my thickness planer. I then glued a few templates in place with spray adhesive and cut them out on the bandsaw. I sanded the pieces using my disc sander, the rotary tool and sanding blocks.

I then rounded over their edges with a spokeshave and a cylindrical file. This gives a more 3D look to the whole piece!

To carve out the typography I used my CNC machine. I also used the CNC to carve the smaller elements I could not cut on the bandsaw. To avoid using tabs on the finished piece I used double sided tape to secure the material on the CNC’s carving bed.

I sanded all the pieces using my random orbit sander and sanding blocks.

I also glued four blocks in place to keep the background from moving around. I then glued and nailed the pieces of the background in place.

In my scenery there is also a snowman. I made him on the lathe from a scrap pine cylindrical piece. I first used the roughing gouge to turn the piece true. I then used a template to mark the positions of the basic shapes. Using a caliper and a straight chisel I established the basic measurements on my piece. I then used a spindle gouge to create the curved parts. I gave the final touches with a skew chisel. I sanded the piece from 100 grit to 280. I used a bamboo stick as a nose and two holes for eyes.

I colored the pieces with water based powder stain which I mixed in water. I used water based white stain for the white parts of the build. I sanded with 200grit sandpaper. I finished the outer box with two coats of water based clear satin varnish.

The snowman is secured in place with a countersinked screw that was from the base of the piece to the bottom of the snowman.

The typography elements are spaced from the background with bamboo sticks. I wanted my scene to have different levels and a more 3 dimensional look.

Using a forstner bit I opened up a whole for the cables. I then added the LED strip. I secured it in place with hot glue. I connected the power supply cables.

I added four protective pads on the bottom of my piece.

I secured the background in place with two screws. Just like we do in picture frames.

My little lamp was now ready. I really enjoyed this year’s Christmas ornament challenge! I hope you like my little project!